El Niño leads to repeat of mild winter

Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring on Friday, and the Rochester area remains well behind normal on snowfall, with warmer than normal temperatures. Rochester has only 34.4 inches of snow so far, which is 23.5 inches below the normal through the first month of the year.

And trailing the normal amounts is not uncommon through western and central New York right now, with Buffalo the only major city approaching its normal snowfall, with 53.6 inches of 60.7 inches.

What is going on? Why don’t we have the winter snow expected? And will Rochester get a real snowstorm this season?

Buffalo’s snowfall totals are mostly attributed to a pair of localized lake effect systems in the past month, including the storm that postponed the Buffalo Bills’ playoff game on Jan. 14, according to National Weather Service in Buffalo meteorologist Jon Hitchcock.

While it’s too early to know the likelihood of a major snowstorm in the region this winter, there’s a dry week expected for the area, meaning few opportunities for more snowfall in the next 10 days.

Sorry, snow lovers: It’s also expected to warm up, with highs in the 50s possible by the end of the week.

The main culprit for the miserly snowfall totals? El Niño, Hitchcock said.

El Niño occurs when westerly trade winds along the equator weaken, causing warm water to push back toward equatorial South America. This deforms the Pacific jet stream and typically brings warm and dry conditions to the Northeast United States.

Whether next winter will be affected by El Niño or its opposite, La Nina, next year won’t be known until about June, Hitchcock said.

Where is all the snow?

While this winter has been mild and lacking in snow, it’s not much of a departure from last year, when Rochester experienced above average temperatures and only 50.4 inches of snow, the lowest amount in 70 years.

Rochester had just 25 days below freezing over the three months of meteorological winter last year (December, January and February), according to the Weather Service.

● Overall 2022-23 was the seventh warmest winter on record in Rochester, with an average temperature of 35 degrees. It also saw the eighth least snowfall and eighth fewest days with an inch of snow on the ground.

● There were three record high temperatures (Nov. 5 and Nov. 6, 2022 and Feb. 15, 2023) and four record high minimum temperatures (Nov. 5, Nov. 6, Nov. 11 and Dec. 30, 2022).

● There was a lowest minimum record as well, with Feb. 8, 2023 dropping to minus 8 degrees.

Rochester historic snow storms in February and March

While Rochester may be trailing its normal snowfall average, there’s still the possibility of significant snowfall in February and March. Rochester’s two biggest snowstorms began in February and continued into the following month.

A 1900 storm saw snow fall for 63 hours straight, burying Rochester under 43.5 inches of snow between Feb. 28 and March 2. The Great Leap Day storm of 1984, which spanned Feb. 27 and March 3, saw 32.7 inches of snow blanket the area.